Presented to: Douglas H. Thayer
For: Summer Fire
The judges stated, "In this important work Thayer traces the confrontation of Owe, an unusually devout sixteen year old Mormon boy, with a usually hostile spiritual environment, and achieves, en route to Owen's humanizing, a refreshing human universality and reaffirmation of life and the necessity of 'opposition in all things'--all without lapsing into the didacticism which has so often plagued Mormon fiction.
We commend Mr. Thayer, not only for his careful craftsmanship, the expectation for which he established in his collection of short stories, Under the Cottonwoods, but also for his imaginative and creative examination of Mormon themes which consistently strike universal chords."